An ongoing edible adventure

Recipes - Soup

09 December 2010

A veggie box on your doorstep is delightful thing to wake up to any day, but exponentially more so on those days when the world outside is covered in a subzero meringue of snow and the roads and sidewalks a creme brulee of ice.

This time of year the boxes are always heavy with starchy roots and gourds, which for soup fiends like me is perfect for boiling up and blitzing into cauldron upon cauldron of soul-toasting potions.

When making this particular soup I realised I'd run out of chicken stock, but given the frost was in no mood to venture outside. I could try to scrape together a vegetable broth, but I haven't yet come across a sufficiently convincing made-from-scratch version at the best of times. I also didn't want to resort to MSG and chemical laden stock cubes.

What to do?

After a rummage through the fridge, I decided to take a punt on using miso paste (the one used here had bonito extract). After the squash had been cooking for 45 minutes, I tried 1 cube with a dab of miso on it. I am thrilled to report that it produced an absolutely delightful result -- the miso gave lift of salt, but instead of the sometimes-metallic high-note of salt, the miso had a much deeper and rounder sweetness. Later, when the soup was in its recognisable soup format, it was very hard to pinpoint the miso in the soup. First-time tasters aren't likely to spot it unless they're looking for it.

The recipe below also works very well with carrots, and -- I am willing to bet -- pumpkins. If you find other root vegetables that fare well as the headline act for this miso-based chorus, please let me know!

Top tip? Make a big batch, share with loved ones, and keep each other warm and fuzzy!

Add onion and garlic-ginger paste, and fry on medium heat for a couple of minutes, until the onion turns translucent

Add the butternut squash cubes and stir until the oily contents cover the squash evenly

Add water until all the squash is just about covered

Bring to the boil, then lower stove flame to low-medium and simmer for 45 minutes

Test the squash with a fork. It should yield easily and start to be just a touch mushy

Add the miso and stir in

Add the chili and coriander (both raw), and blend or hand-blitz until contents are mostly smooth

Add milk and blend until soup is smooth and velvety

If soup feels sludgy, add a bit of milk or boiling water at a time and mix, until you get the smoothness and lightness you want (do this gradually -- it's easier to dilute a soup than to re-thicken it)

Add additional miso paste or salt, and black pepper to taste

Serve up the soup, and garnish with a sprig of fresh coriander and a few drops of chili oil

If you like, add a dollop of greek yogurt in the bowl just before serving, to add creaminess with a tangy lift

Best eaten with toes curled in a pair of furry slippers, gazing out the window at the snow outside.

24 July 2010

On the first day of every Chinese New Year my Grandma's household and ours wakes up in a cloud of the sweet warm heady aroma of ginger, garlic and chicken fried then simmered in homemade Ang Chow -- the thick residue of a wine made from glutinous rice and a vivid red yeast.

I'd tumble out of bed, and tuck into a big breakfast bowl of Ang Chow Mee Sua, this Foochow-Chinese style soupy coq au vin with blanched riceflour threads. What a start to the Chinese New Year! At some point later in the day I'd have an afternoon bowl of the same at Grandma's. And then very likely drift into a stupored nap after.

My Mum and I both grew up thinking Ang Chow Mee Sua was a traditional New Year dish. It was only earlier this year when I finally learned how to make the stuff from Mum and Grandma that we both found out that it's really a dish meant for birthdays and weddings. Grandma made it on the first day of every Chinese New Year because that was Grandpa's birthday! (That generation of Chinese usually mark their days by the lunar instead of Roman calendar.)

Above: Grandma shows Babs the ropes about rice threads at his first Chinese New Year lunch at her place earlier this year

Making Ang Chow from scratch is a disappearing art in Singapore. In the last couple of years Mum has had a regular stream of Ang Chow acolytes at home, so there's always a steady supply of Ang Chow residue and wine in her pantry. And an even steadier stream of friends and family eager to dine with my parents anytime during the year to taste the real deal, either for the first time, or to fix a craving.

For those who want to try making their own Ang Chow at home, I've documented the process here. If you already have access to some Ang Chow residue, I hope you enjoy this Ang Chow Mee Sua recipe as much as our family does.

07 May 2010

Above: Toasting your mochi before you eat them produces a golden crispy surface and a lovely warm gooey centre. But watch out -- toast them too long and they could erupt!

You might be familiar with mochi. The Japanese chewy gooey rice cakes usually filled with a sweet red bean paste, and in more recent times popping up in many more fahionable flavours (e.g. coffee) and fillings (e.g. fruit-flavoured jellies or ice-cream). Traditionally they were eaten by farmers in the winter to mend both body and soul, and are a treat eaten during the Japanese New Year.

What I wasn't familiar with, however, was just how mochi work hand-made mochi takes!

As Babs, Chris and I learnt how to make this delicious traditional treat while WWOOFING on a rice farm near Osaka, we wondered "can anyone we know actually make this at home?"

Possibly. If we can't tempt you with the great mochi workout (great exercise for the biceps and triceps, as the guys will attest!) check your Asian grocery stores for mochi sheets or mochi powder. As for yomogi (Japanese mugwort), it's long been regarded a North-Asian cureall for blood purification and inflammation reduction, so dried versions of the leaves have known to be sold in Asian markets and medical halls, to be used as a soup or tea or even spa ingredient!

But if you want try to make mochi the old school way, here's how. The effort might just make you love your mochi that mochi more.

Collect a big plastic bag of young yomogi leaves. They grow wild in the Japanese and Korean countryside, in parks and even just next to roads. Foraging best done between March and May when the leaves are sufficiently sized, but still tender. Given we were on the farm in April, Shigemi sent us out to forage for the year's harvest. The surplus can be sun-dried or frozen.

Remove leaves with brown bits

Place yomogi in a large basin

Put a couple of scoops of charcoal ash in a towel bag, and place the bag on top of the yomogi

Pour boiling water on the ashbag until the basin is full of water. Leave a weight (e.g. a cooking pan filled with water) on the ash bag to keep the yomogi underwater

The above process removes the bitterness from the yomogi leaves

Drain the basin and squeeze the water out of the yomogi

Preparing the Azuki (Sweet Red Beans)

Wash and drain 300g of azuki

Bring the beans to a boil, boil for 5 minutes, then drain the water. This removes the bitterness from the beans

Refill the pot with water and bring the beans to a boil again, then lower the flame as much as possible and let the beans continue to simmer until their skins have cracked

Drain the beans

Mix 3 tablespoons of white sugar and 1 tablespoon of unrefined sugar into the beans

Shape the bean paste into little balls (about 2cm in diameter)

Making the Mochi

Steam the soaked sticky rice for about 20 minutes

Add a thick layer of yomogi on top of the rice and steam for about a couple of minutes

Transfer the steamed yomogi to a mortar and use a mochi hammer (or pestle) to pound the yomogi (use short sharp quick movements of the hammer)

Remove the yomogi from the mortar and set aside

Transfer the sticky rice to the mortar

Use a mochi hammer to pound the sticky rice into a smooth sticky dough (short sharp quick movements of the hammer)

Shigemi says she's never seen WWOOFERS make mochi with such...such... what's the word, Chris?

I osso say! A very respectable effort, when compared with these veterans.

Add the pounded yomogi into the rice dough, and pound with long strokes of the hammer (swing the hammer from directly overhead) to mix the yomogi into the dough. Pound as quickly a possible – the rice dough is malleable only when it's still warm

When the dough and yomogi is smoothly mixed, cut / pull out balls of dough (about 4 cm in diameter)

Wet both your hands, and flatten out the dough ball in your palm. Make the edges of the patty thinner than the middle

Place an azuki ball in the middle of the patty

Fold in the corners of the patty (and the resulting smaller corners

Turn the mochi upside down, wet your hand again, and use both your hands to make quick circular movements in opposite directions. Use your thumb to smooth out the shape of the mochi

(Pardon the light. We were all working at night in the backyard kitchen!)

Sprinkle rice powder on a tray

Roll the mochi on the rice powder and lay out in rows in the tray. This way they won't stick to each other

Serving the Mochi

Toast It! Place the stuffed mochi on a charcoal grill or in a toaster oven, and warm for a few minutes, until the mochi develops a light golden crust. Watch out! The mochi will expand, and if left alone the azuki will erupt from the mochi. Shigemi says this will produce a heavenly smell, but quite a sticky mess!

Soup It Up! Use some of the dough to roll into plain mochi balls to eat with boiled sweetened azuki soup (right). To make the soup, add boiling water to the cooked azuki and sweeten to taste. Shigemi's mother enjoyed this so much she had 3 mochi balls in her soup for dinner, while the boys and I could only manage 1 each!

Old school mochi, made this way without preservatives, keeps for only 2 to 3 days at most. So if you've made more than you can eat, be sure to spread the love around.

27 March 2010

After a 3-week whistlestop tour of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, we're back in Singapore briefly, primarily to celebrate my maternal Grandma's 95th birthday.

I could babble on and on about how and why Grandma is my role model. A few inadequately short anecdotes: she fought my grandfather to get her daughters secondary education (a privilege usually reserved only for sons in that generation), managed most of the finances and customer relations at my grandfather's tailoring business, spent many of her retirement years cooking up a storm of of delectable treats and sewing epic cross-stitch landscapes to raise funds for her church, and even now, is on top of all the ins and outs of all the clan's happenings probably more than any other younger individual in the family.

I spent many pf my younger years poring over Grandma's cross-stitch books and projects and skeins of threads. From time to time I also played the role of kitchen hand (or more probably kitchen underfoot) when she made Nonya desserts such as ondeh-ondeh or ang ku kueh, but stupidly was too young and clueless then to take detailed notes. Now that my interests have drifted and taken firm root in the kitchen, however, I'm racing to learn and collect as many of Grandma's old-school family recipes as I can.

Top on this list is her homemade Foochow Ang Chow (red rice wine), an increasingly disappearing craft in ultra modern Singapore. This recipe is Grandma's, handed down to my Mum, and now handed down to me, and all of you!

To Mum's credit, it sounds like she's improved on the original -- Grandma prefers Mum's wine to her own, so now has a call option on a portion of each batch of wine Mum makes!

*Top tip from Mum*: The wine cakes affect the taste of the wine significantly. Experiment with vendors until you get a taste you like, then stick to them like white on rice (or in this case red on rice).

Directions

Wash and soak glutinous rice for at least 3 hours (preferably overnight), completely submerged in water

After soaking, drain the water. Use fingers to poke holes all over the tray of levelled rice. The holes serve 2 purposes. From the holes, we can see the level of water. We want it to be half the depth of the rice. The holes also help the rice to cook faster

Steam the rice for 30 min or until it is thoroughly cooked

Loosen and spread the rice out to cool completely

Dry-blend the wine cakes and the red yeast rice and pour the resulting pink powder into a big bowl

Wet your hand in cooled boiled water

Take handful of the cooled cooked glutinous rice (see photo below for approximate size of 'handful' and coat it with the pink powder)

Put the powder-coated glutinous rice into a big container

Repeat coating the handfuls of rice and placement in container until all the glutinous rice and powder is used up

Use any remaining water to rinse any remaining glutinous rice or powder from working bowls into the large container

*Top tip from Mum*: If globs of rice fall on the floor, leave it and throw away. Do not pick it up and rinse and put it in the container. Bacteria picked up can ruin the wine.

Place the container's cap, but do not tighten

Set aside container in a cool dark place for 7 days

On the 7th day, stir mixture in container then replace the cover, again loosely

Set aside for another 23 days

Harvest the wine and the rice residue on the 30th day

*Top tip from Mum*: It is imperative not to screw on the container's cap tight, as the fermenting process produces a lot of gas. Grandma once had a new, not-yet-fully-orientated housekeeper who took the initiative to screw on the container's cap. A few days later the container exploded in the middle of the night, scaring everyone in the house half to death! It didn't help that the bright red contents of the jar made the room look like the climax of Stanley Kubrick's film rendition of Stephen King's The Shining.

Harvesting the Ang Chow and Wine (Day 30)

The fermented mixture is in two sections, the bulk of which is on top. Scoop the drier fermented ang chow at the top of the container into jars. (This is a great opportunity to recycle coffee and salsa etc glass jars.)

Place a sieve on a pot and drain the wetter ang chow until most of the wine is in the pot. Scoop the drained residue in the sieve into jars. This residue is the key ingredient in the signature Foochow dish Ang Chow Mee Sua soup, usually eaten on a birthday or as part of a wedding because of its auspicious colour.

You'll end up with a couple of large jugs of cloudy wine.

Stick a funnel into a screwcap bottle (another great recycling opportunity), and hold a muslin sieve (or coffee 'sock') above the funnel. Slowly ladle the cloudy wine into the sock and let the clear wine drip through into the bottle.

The "cloudy" residue collected in the sock can be jarred separately and used as a very tasty coating for Ang Chow Fried Chicken and Ang Chow Fried Fish.

Cap the bottles of wine. The wine can be used for marinating meat and cooking, but also tastes pretty damn good on its own! Left alone, the wine will continue to mature.

In the spirit of being investigative (ahem) Mum and I did a sampling of a couple of ang chow wine vintages. The lighter wine you see here is 2 months old, and had a lighter, fruity taste, which could work as a hefty dessert wine. The darker wine on the right is 8 months old, and had a heavier, Chinese-herb-wine-esque taste.

Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine prescribe this wine to por, or "mend" the health and strength of mothers who have just given birth. They also recommend this wine for lowering cholestrol (check with your doctor first though!)

Wine making anywhere is an art, and the variations and idiosyncracies of each winemaker are integral to the craft. Here are a couple of slightly different recipes I found elsewhere on the web for further reading if interested.

29 September 2009

I've had a lifelong obsession with mushrooms and mushroom soup. It started with those Campbell cans in my childhood and just kept going. At the worst of times, I'd eat the gloop straight from the can without even waiting to cook it!

As I got older, I moved on to "pimping up" my store-bought mushroom soup with any kind of exotic shrooms I could get my hands on. Being based in Singapore at the time, this usually meant locally-grown versions of Japanese varieties such as shitake, enoki and nameki. It got to the point where my Mum's mushroom supplier knew the ins-and-outs of my study and work-travel schedule!

As such, I can't believe I learnt how to make this only last year, after I moved to London. I think partly it speaks to the quality and range of store-bought options out there, but I decided to learn how to make it for myself in an effort to gradually reduce unnecessary chemicals and preservatives from my diet.

I've made this a few times now with a few variations, and what I really like about it is that you can make it as budget and health-friendly or not as you like. Budget-wise, I balance it out by using relatively basic mushrooms for the base, then use more exotic mushrooms for a chunky garnish.

Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients

For the Base:

2 large white or yellow onion, finely chopped

2-3 large sticks celery, finely chopped

600g mix of field / chestnut / portobello mushrooms. Or porcini, if you feel like splashing out

0.5 litre whole milk, preferably organic. (I've tried this with heavy-cream and skimmed milk, and decided whole milk is a good middle-ground)

Salt and coarse-ground black pepper to taste

For the Garnish:

A handful of exotic mushooms of choice per serving. If they're small enough, leave them whole. If they're large, slice them up. In this version I used a mix of dried wild mushrooms I bought from France. If you're using dried mushrooms, soak them in warm water for about 20 minutes. Then drain the water but set aside; you can add it to the soup stock as it will be mushroom-flavoured

A sprinkling of fresh thyme leaves

A few drops of extra virgin olive oil, preferably organic

Directions

Fry it Up

If you're a mushroom purist, you clean your mushrooms with a mushroom brush or a damp cloth, rather than by rinsing under cold water. I leave this up to you

Add a few generous glugs of olive oil to the stock pot, let it warm for about 30 seconds

Add the onions, and fry for ~ 2 minutes, until they just start to soften

Add the celery, and fry for another 3-5 minutes, until they start to soften

Add the soup-base mushrooms, sage, thyme, paprika and a sprinkle of salt, and fry for 3-5 minutes until it's an even mix

Sprinkle the flour evenly into the stock pot and fry for 1 minute until evenly coated

Soup it Up

Add the white wine, stir briefly, and let simmer for ~5 minutes

Add the chicken or vegetable stock, let it come to a boil, then turn flame down to low and let simmer for 15-20 minutes. Alternatively, boil your stock separately, then add it to the stock pot and turn the flame down to low and simmer. Don't forget to add your mushroom-water from rehydrating dried mushrooms!

Stir occasionally to make sure that the bottom of the pot doesn't burn

Take the stock pot off the stove (be careful!)

Use a hand blenderand blitz the contents of the stock pot until you get a mixture that is as smooth or chunky as you like. Alternatively, use a regular blender and blitz it in batches

Add the milk, and stir in evenly

At this point, add your exotic mushrooms of choice into the stock pot, stir gently just to make sure the contents are at an even temperature

Add salt and black pepper to taste

Serve it Up!

Distribute the soup into individual bowls

Add a sprinkle of thyme, fresh-ground black pepper and few drops of extra virgin olive oil

I usually make a batch and eat through it all in week (great for bringing to work for lunch if you have a lock-and-lock box) so I haven't yet tried freezing this. Let me know if you have advice on how long this is likely to be good for if frozen.

06 September 2009

Chicken broth. The cornerstone of so many great soups, gravies, stir-fry flavourings, one-bowl meals, massive hot pot parties, and tonics for the common cold.

The minimum-fuss way to make this is simply to save the carcass from a roast chicken or turkey dinner (My parents' home in Singapore basks in the golden glow of turkey stock for about a week after Christmas, when we usually work through 4-5 turkeys over the season with various groups of family and friends).

In London, Babs and I got into the habit of buying a whole ~2kg chicken every 2-3 weeks from either Clare's Organics,Sheepdrove Farm or the Stocks Farm stall at Queens Park Farmers Market in London. We'd debone and section the chicken at home, marinate and freeze the meat into 5 meal portions (legs + wings; thighs; individual breasts) then tossing the bones into the stock pot. By the end of the evening there'd be enough stock ready to freeze to last another fortnight. Alternatively, you can buy bags of soup bones from Clare's Organics, and possibly from your local butcher if you call ahead.

This recipe makes about 2 litres stock that's ready for cooking (boil and concentrate further for more efficient freezing. Simply re-add water a little at a time when you're ready to cook)

Ingredients:

1 large chicken carcass, or 2 smaller carcasses, all skin and fat removed. Some like to roast raw bones for 30 minutes first to get a smokier flavour. Personally I'm indifferent. But roasting the bones will help to melt the fat off the bones before you put it into the stock pot

A few dashes of garlic powder and paprika

A couple of bay leaves

A handful of black peppercorns

Salt to taste (Add salt when the stock's boiled down so that it's easier to gauge how salty your soup is going to be)

Tom yum soup is my panacea for many of life's minor troubles -- blocked sinuses, tummy upsets, and lousy moods. There's something about the combined sweetness, tartness and heat that comforts and stimulates all at the same time. During a 3 month period when I was commuting weekly to the Netherlands for work, Babs would pick me up at Heathrow and we would go home via Khao San on the corner of Chepstow Road and Westbourne Park Road; my favourite Thai restaurant in London run by a lovely woman called Pan, just so I could recharge with a double-portion of her tom yum seafood soup.

I learnt how to make this from scratch so that I could stop using the processed pre-fab soup packets. Don't be intimidated by the list of ingredients, once you get them together they just need chucking together in a pot.

I've tried to stay faithful to the traditional recipe in this post, with indications of what you can get away with leaving out if you don't have a comprehensive Asian grocer nearby. Apologies to the purists in advance!

29 September update: Just discovered Joelen's Culinary Adventures's blogging event with a soup / stock pot theme, and decided I just had to add this one into the mix! My original contribution to the event is my home-made Mushroom Soup recipe.

Above: The fiery red is from prawn shells, not chillies. Some of the spiciest tom yum soups I've had have no colour in the stock at all!

A small bagful of prawn shells or crab shells or lobster shells (Optional but try this if at all possible for a luxurious kick! Babs and I both grew up in families that had a habit of buying fresh whole shrimp, shelling them in batches, and freezing the meat and the shells separately for later use)

Above: Many thanks to Steve Hall from theHandpicked Shellfish Companyfor the hake skeletons, the foundation of this tom yum soup recipe

For Tartness and Fragrance:

8-12 stalks lemongrass, lightly bashed

Juice from 2-4 limes (don't add the lime rinds to the stock -- it will make the stock bitter)

If you're feeling adventurous, rub salt on the fish heads and cook in the boiling broth after straining for the last 15-20 minutes. Fish aficionados will fight over the lovely tender meat on the head, in the cheeks and under the collars. The jelly around the eyes is also considered a delicacy

I have to admit, I don't know how long this stock keeps if you freeze it -- I usually plow through all of it within 1-3 days! Advice, anyone?

If Serving as a Soup Dish, Add Your Desired Amount Of...

Slices of solid-meat fish (e.g. pollock, salmon, trout)

Whole shrimp, peeled

Mussels on the half-shell

Crab or lobster meat (if you really want to pimp it up)

Mushrooms. Purists will use straw mushrooms; I really like using sliced up fresh shitake, and enoki aka golden mushrooms, which really absorb the tom yum flavour

Add all of the above to the stock, and cook on medium-high heat for 5 minutes at most

Add the fresh lime juice

Garnish with fresh red chilli sliced on the bias, and a few coriander leaves

Make A Meal of It!

I often make this as a quick one-bowl meal, if I have leftover stock from the previous day. In addition to the ingredients above, I add a couple of handfuls of kang kong aka water morning glory, or baby spinach leaves, and 1 single-serving bundle of tang hoon aka glass noodles per portion. This can all go into the stock pot at the same time as the ingredients above, as the cooking time is equally quick.

02 September 2009

This is a building block that can end up in numerous other recipes. Whenever possible I try to have a few portions of soup stock in the freezer. They're great for whipping up quick and easy meals that rely less on using chemical-laden processed food.

Start by Taking the Bait

It's my firm belief that all good soups start with some lovely bones. And the best way to get some for making a great fish stock is to find a fishmonger you trust and get friendly with them!

Given all the fillets that fishmongers sell, they more often than not have heaps of fish skeletons lying around, especially if you go towards the end of the market day. The well known and regarded Steve Hatt in Angel, London will sell fish heads and skeletons for a token sum. My favourite fishmonger in London -- Steve Hall, founder of Handpicked Shellfish Company -- has on more than one occasion generously let me simply help myself to his stash of hake and cod skeletons, taking home as much as I can carry. "Better that you do something with it," he says, "I just use them as bait in the crab traps otherwise."

This is serious foodie arbitrage folks. I hope I can repay Mr Hall's generosity by spreading by good word about his stellar produce. (A note on etiquette: If your fishmonger is as generous, make sure you keep him in business with regular purchases, and not just scavenge)

One tip I picked up from a fish cookery class with John Benbow, who runs Food at 52 in Central London: For basic fish broth, best to use white fish (e.g. hake, bream, turbot) rather than oily fish (e.g. salmon, mackerel), as the latter might have too overpowering a taste.

Place all the ingredients in a stock pot and fill with room-temperature water (preferably filtered) till the pot covers all of the ingredients

Turn the heat on the stove to medium-high. Leave the lid off so that as the water reduces the flavours will concentrate

Another tip from John at Food at 52: The protein in the fish head and eyes start to break down after boiling for more than 1/2 hour, which might leave a bitter aftertaste in the stock. I mitigate this by removing the fish head from the pot after the first 1/2 hour of boiling. The rest of the fish skeleton doesn't cause the same problem, as far as I can tell

Boil for another 60-90 minutes. If you don't plan to use it right away, you want it as concentrated as possible for easier storage. You can always rehydrate the concentrate when needed later

Strain the stock with a fine-mesh sieve or muslin cloth (the latter is better if you're a purist about removing the "scum" from the surface of the stock)

Portion the stock our for storage (e.g. ice-cube trays are good for gravy-sized portions; Lock 'n' Lock boxes are good for soup-sized portions)